This is an edited excerpt of the ‘What are Keywords?’ lesson from Claire Carlile’s free How to Master Local Keyword Research course in BrightLocal Academy.

We’re going to explore what we mean when we say ‘keywords’, and think about some of the concepts to keep in mind when putting together our own list of keywords. 

Why keyword research is important

Keyword research is vital for successfully being found online.  

It heavily impacts on-page SEO, as well as how pages are organized and shaped—or what we call the ‘information architecture’.

It also affects how you talk about your business, products, and services in both your offline and online marketing materials.

Keyword research can give you a great insight into your target audiences, your niche, your competitors, and also how your marketplace is changing.  

Through conducting in-depth keyword research you’ll develop a detailed understanding of your potential customers and how they’re searching, what they’re searching for, the problems they’re looking to solve, and how you—and your products and services—can best meet their needs.

Google back then…

All searches performed by users start with a search query or search ‘string’—these are the words that you type into the search engine.  

Back in the olden days, when dinosaurs roamed the earth (also known as the 1990s), when we optimized a web page for search engines we entered popular terms into the ‘meta keywords’ field.  

At…